Can You Hear Me Now?

"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me."  John 10:27

There was a popular cell phone commercial some years ago where a gentleman was testing cell phone reception in various areas of the country.  That commercial probably initially made you laugh and then eventually got on your nerves.  The popular catch phrase that he repeated in every location and multiple times on every commercial was, "Can you hear me now?" 

Just as we want to know that whenever we pick up our cell phone that the person on the other end is going to hear us loud and clear, we also like to know that people we are talking to face to face are clearly hearing what we say.  If you've ever spent much time talking to someone with hearing loss, you feel as if you have to raise your voice to an uncomfortable level just to hold a conversation.

I wonder if God is sometimes looking down on us saying,

"Can you hear me now?" 

"Can you hear me now?"

 I imagine He wonders if we're suffering from hearing loss because of all the times we don't hear what He says to us.

Perhaps you're like me and have trouble hearing God because of all of the static in your life. There's so much continual background noise that God has to practically shout to be heard over it all.

Jesus paints the beautiful picture in John's gospel of Him as our shepherd.  He says that His sheep follow Him because they know His voice.  He even says that they won't follow a stranger because they don't recognize his voice (10:4-5).

Hmmm. . . . I wonder how many times the voice of God has called out to me and I didn't hear it, or I didn't know it was Him.  Am I responding to God more like a stranger or like the Shepard that He is?

I've heard many people say on various occasions, "How do I know that this is God pointing me down this path?  How can I be sure that this is God's voice I'm hearing?"

Well, the only way we can truly know if God is speaking to us is if we know what His voice sounds like. 

Now, are you going to hear an audible voice like young Samuel did in the Old Testament when God called out to him in the middle of the night?  Probably not, but He still speaks very clearly to His children in order to make His will known.

Romans 12:2 says this:

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will."  

As we lay aside the things of the world and put the things of God first, He tells us that we'll begin to more clearly determine which voice is His and which is not.  There is no doubt that whenever I'm walking closely to God by spending time with Him daily in prayer and in His Word, it is much easier to decipher the voice of God over all of the other voices that fill our ears everyday.

Do you truly want to hear God's voice so that you can follow Him and His will for your life?  Then you have to learn to listen for His voice.  We're going to have to turn down the volume on the rest of the world and allow Him to transform our minds . . . and our hearing.